Vivid

Vivid is a word that most of us wouldn't apply to the prairie in wintertime.  Colors tend to be monochromatic -except for a few birds, bright stars or blue sky - and even the light can be puny many days in a row.  Then darkness descends so early. Even on sunny, bright days, we tend to stay indoors because it's so cold.  It's easy to let the most vivid experiences be irritability and impatience or grief and hopelessness.  Especially during holiday times, our sadness can to be magnified because of the contrast with what we see in stores and in the media depicting lovely family gatherings or gorgeous, sunny get aways.  And sometimes, as in everybody's life, circumstances make it so that the most vivid experiences simply are just the dark or sad ones.  Grief tends to pin a person into now in the most unpleasant ways imaginable.  The absence of a loved one is loud and searing around the holidays.

It's a time when we need to adjust the angle on the viewer to wide.  We need to do our best to see the biggest possible version of the picture.  Then come to our senses with the intention of being fully present to now, with gratitude and kindness.  Notice our breathing until it slows and the out breath is longer than the in breath.  Feel our feet in our socks, the pressure of our weight on whatever surface we are sitting or standing.  Our skin inside our clothes.  The smells in the room, the color of the light.  The set of our jaw, where our tongue rests, which muscles are tight.  Loosen them.  Breathe.  Then staying with the awareness of now, opening to acceptance of our feelings without resistance or judgement - only kindness and gratitude that we have breath and pulse and sensation.  It's easier to release sadness or anger if we embrace it with loving kindness.  The next right thing after that is to be in our lives with knowledge and acceptance of what is, living as vividly as we are able.

Usually in the midst of vivid, intense emotion, it's hard not to be mindful, but it's also hard not to resist and judge.  Grief about lost love doesn't pass, it comes in waves that wash over and through us, then it recedes. The waves never stop. Just some days are stormier than others.  But loving kindness, gratitude that we have a pulse and breath on this living, gorgeous blue planet for this brief time, and a commitment to live those breaths vividly, in spite of missing someone, or even because of it. That's as good as we can do.